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Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran, lies on the ground bleeding from a head wound after being hit by a projectile at an Occupy Wall Street protest in Oakland, Calif.
(Jay Finneburgh, The Associated Press
)

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Iraq War veteran injured during a clash between police and anti-Wall Street protesters wasn't taking part in the demonstrations out of economic want.

Scott Olsen, 24, makes a good living at a software company and rents a hillside apartment with views of San Francisco Bay. And yet, his friends say, he felt so strongly about economic inequality in the country that he fought for that he slept at a San Francisco protest camp after work.

"He felt you shouldn't wait until something is affecting you to get out and do something about it," said friend and roommate Keith Shan non, who served with Olsen in Iraq.

It was that feeling that drew him to Oakland on Tuesday night, when the clashes broke out and Olsen was struck by a projectile that fractured his skull. Police say they responded only when protesters began throwing bottles and other items at them.

Now, even as officials investigate exactly where the projectile came from, and from whom, Olsen has become a rallying cry for Occupy Wall Street demonstrators across the nation, with Twitter users and protest websites declaring: "We are all Scott Olsen."

In Las Vegas, a few dozen protesters held a vigil Wednesday night, carrying glow sticks and projecting a photo of the Marine in uniform onto the corrugated-metal side of a building at their camp.

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More vigils were being planned Thursday night in other cities.

Elsewhere, officials took steps to close some camps that sprang up since the movement began last month against what protesters see as corporate greed and a government that caters to the wealthiest and big business.

In Nashville, Tenn., officials imposed a curfew for a camp at the Capitol complex. In Providence, R.I., officials notified protesters that they were violating laws prohibiting camping overnight at a park.

In Oakland on Thursday, most of the talk was of Olsen and who was responsible for his injury. The group Iraq Veterans Against the War blamed police. Police say they used tear gas and bean-bag rounds, not flash grenades and rubber bullets as some demonstrators have charged.

Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said Wednesday that the charges of excessive use of force are being investigated. He did not return repeated calls seeking comment Thursday.

Alameda County Medical Center chief surgeon Dr. Alden Harken said Olsen had improved dramatically since he was hospitalized unconscious Tuesday night with a fractured skull and bruised brain. He said Olsen is unable to speak but can otherwise communicate and is expected to make a full recovery

By Thursday afternoon, Harken said, the 24-year-old was interacting with his parents — who flew in from Wisconsin — doing math equations and otherwise showing signs of "high-level cognitive functioning."

The doctor said he may require surgery but that it was unlikely.

Olsen, who is from Onalaska, Wis., served two tours in Iraq and believed the anti-Wall Street movement had a chance to create real change, Shannon said. So each night, he would go out to the tent camps and usually called Shannon with his whereabouts.

On Tuesday night, Olsen had planned to be in San Francisco but changed course after his veterans group decided to go to Oakland to support the protesters there. Earlier, police in riot gear cleared an encampment outside city hall that officials said had health and safety problems.

"I think it was a last-minute thing," Shannon said of Olsen's decision. "He didn't think about it."

Olsen was awarded seven medals while serving in the Marine Corps, which he left as a lance corporal in November 2009 after serving for four years. One of them was the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal.

His tours of duty in Iraq made him more serious, Shannon said: "He wasn't active in politics before he went in the military, but he became active once he was out. . . . The experience in the military definitely shaped him."

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